Mike vs Opossum

Around 3:30am Diane's small dog Ebby, their sweet little lap dog that SLEEPS with them, see above picture taken by Rachel, started barking and barking. She was put outside but the barking didn't stop. Diane woke Mike up and asked him to go check on her. He walks outside and almost steps on a big opossum that starts hissing at him. Mike grabs the air compressor and tries to scare it off his deck with blowing air but the opossum crouches into the corner of the deck and won't move. This prompts Mike to go get his small gun called 'the judge' he sneaks up on the opossum that won't leave and the gun goes off, it is filled with buckshot and does not kill the opossum. The opossum now is not just clinging to the deck, it is in pain and mad. Mike shoots it FOUR more times before it dies. Mike comes in and tells Diane, "we would have been in trouble if a bear had threatened us in Colorado." Mike carried 'the judge' for protection against bears on the Colorado trip.
Meanwhile Rachel wakes up at the first shot, then hears 4 more, wakes up David and asks him, "what season is it?" My first reaction to that question if just awakened would be fall, autumn, past summer, but David's brain works that early and tells her duck season. Rachel's thinking there is no way someone is shooting at ducks at 4:15am, hmmm hope the neighbors are ok and goes back to sleep. Her neighbors are all family so we could tell she was very concerned for her family by her reaction.
Of course when Diane and Rachel are telling the story on our walk this morning we are laughing so hard we didn't get very far fast.
Mike passed us with his 4 wheeler dragging the wagon with the opossum and a shovel so we know it is now buried.
A load of sand was dumped and Mike must have worked on Raven's paddock yesterday, it is looking GREAT!
The filly was given her sulpha and her eye was treated. She stood quietly while I worked on her eye. Steven had cleaned the stalls last night so after feeding and watering I left for home.
At Bridlewood Sanna was pulled out, fed and then taken out back for grazing while I worked on the cleaning paddock. She didn't want to be grazing and as the back barn door was open she ran through the barn and back to her paddock, standing at the gate until I let her in.